If you grew up in a household where the newspaper was delivered on Saturday morning, you were probably involved in the weekly fight to get the section you wanted. Maybe Dad wanted to read the news, and Mom wanted the lifestyle section. An older sister might want the entertainment, and an older brother might want the automotive section, and the youngest child in the house will probably ask for the comic section.

The newspaper was delivered to the front door, Dad went outside in his slippers and picked it up, and the paper was distributed to the house according to the interests of the people in the family. While the idea might generalize the interests of the people living near house, the weekly newspaper-section-grab is played out across America.

People’s lives are busy and not everyone is interested in everything all the time! You don’t have the time to cut through the clutter of information, you simply want to get at the thing that interests you, and ignore the rest.

As the information age increases, and the availability of content seems to grow exponentially every single day, the need for organization and selectivity of information and entertainment becomes more and more important.

The Internet has allowed exactly this kind of selectivity, except there is still a sense of you having to go out and find the information you’re looking for (for example, through a search engine) and then choose from a list of related choices.

Podcasting has changed that. Podcasting lets you choose the types of information or entertainment you’re interested in getting, and then it automates the process by downloading new shows as they are updated.

You’ll learn a lot through this book as you go from beginner to pro. But don’t lose sight of the most important thing: podcasting can be a convenient way to be entertained or informed, but most importantly, it’s a lot of fun!

You’re going to hear a lot of technical terms and do a little legwork to get your first podcast into the world, but don’t let that slow you down. Have fun with it!